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Dennis, I failed to mention what nice classical that is . What are the back and sides? Could you lean it up the other way so we can see? How did you doctor the background like that? Paint shop?

I looked at my programs and no paint shop . Scan soft scans at 300 dpi minimum. However when I save it to jpeg I think I can lower it . I`ll give it a try. Maybe I`ll learn something at least.

[QUOTE=Dale M] Dennis, I failed to mention what nice classical that is . What are the back and sides? Could you lean it up the other way so we can see? How did you doctor the background like that? Paint shop?

I looked at my programs and no paint shop . Scan soft scans at 300 dpi minimum. However when I save it to jpeg I think I can lower it . I`ll give it a try. Maybe I`ll learn something at least.
[/QUOTE]
Hi Dale, That is Michael McBrooms' guitar. I just "stole" the image from one of his previous posts.

Most any imaging software has a "resize" function, but that is actually one of the functions of the imaging software packages that separates the good ones from the not so good ones. Paint Shop Pro is cheap, and has a very good resizing algorithm. Think of this problem: You have done a mosaic of the Mona Lisa, using small pieces of colored stone, and you used exactly 1,0240,000 little stones. Now, you need to make a copy, but this time you must use exactly 32,768 of the same size stones, and keep everything in proportion. That's the kind of problem solved by the resizing algorithms.

If we all had unlimited budgets, we'd all be getting copies of Photoshop CS2, rather than Paint Shop Pro. But, for the needs of most users, Paint Shop Pro will handle the cropping, color correction, and resizing functions just fine. Look on Ebay for version number 7.something, or to get even a better resizing algorithm (and some other refinements to features) get version 8.something. You don't need version 9.0, the latest.

DennisDennisLeahy38573.4934259259

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Dennis, were you using a Photoshop plugin for that background enhancement? Which one? I like it!

Dale, since you asked, here's a shot of the back of the guitar:



The top is redwood, and the back and sides are padauk. Mahogany neck, padauk bridge, padauk binding. Torres 7-fan bracing pattern, using spruce for bracing material. The only thing I would do differently next time would be to use a different material for the binding. Padauk doesn't bend all that well, and the narrow little binding strips were almost impossible to bend.

This guitar was my third build, and actually sounds fantastic. Very loud and robust, with good balance. I like the redwood/padauk combination, both aesthetically and acoustically. I have a decent stock of padauk and redwood, so I intend to build more.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

Here is my 1st effort at up loading a picture. I went back and re-scanned the pic and lowered the res. this is a quilted cherry I finished in November . If this works I have other pics if any one is interested. Well, here goes-----

Well, the pic is somewhere behind the little red X. WadIdo wrong???

I know a lot of you guys are high on these tools where you press a button and resize your images. However, I have a method that will produce fantastic clarity, and keep the file size small.

This is the technique we use on all of our web work.

Choose the image you want to resize.

Resize it by 50% (if the image is 1500 x 1000 pixels make it NO SMALLER than 750 pixels x 500 pixels)

Use an UNSHARP filter on the entire image and set your settings to

     Sharpen Amount = 100
     Pixel Radius = .6
     Threshold = 0

I do this in Fireworks, but you can use Photoshop or a number of other programs.

Keep reducing the file by NO MORE THAN HALF, and repeating the UNSHARP technique.

When you have it to the final size you want use a Gaussian Blur to the entire image with a .2 setting.

Then save your JPG as per normal... you can adjust the quality setting to dial in the file size, but this obviously has some impact on the crispness of the image.



I am sure you are thinking... geesh, this is a lot of work... I realize it is, but it produces really tight images. I have not found an automated tool yet that matches this technique.

If you are clever, you can probably set up a macro in your graphics editing tool to do this for you if you have a standard size image you need.

Good luck.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Dale,

Did you click on the icon that has a blue arrow in front of a tree?

This opens up another window. After it loads, click on "Browse" which opens a file folder on your machine. Then you have to go to the folder you need by clicking on the dropdown panel if necessary and selecting the folder where your images are stored. Select your desired image, click on "Open" then "OK" and the image should be transferred from your machine to Lance's server.

Then click on the Preview Post button below your editing window to make sure things loaded properly. If they didn't, close the preview window, and try again.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

I surrender! All I can get is a little red X.

Dale

Try taking the # out of the file name of the file you are trying to upload.

I think it is not supported by the upload server.

Hope this helps

Bless you Russel! You are one smart guy! I`d never have thought of that. I`m going to post this one but I`m going to try to improve the resolution on the next one . I lowered the res to be able to post but I over did it a bit. You can tell it`s a guitar but that`s about all. Just think . You spotted that all the way from GB!

No Problem Dale glad to help.

By the way that is a lovely guitar, Hows the cherry sound ?

I`m very pleased with the sound. I spent a lot of time tap tuning but finally got it very close to A flat. It projects well. I`m a bluegrass player and it`s important that an instrument be heard in a jam. My grandson wants an under the strings pickup with on board controls on it so I`m probably going to do that soon.( He wants an axe!) I`ve already got the pickup but have not worked up the guts to start cutting holes in the guitar.
I`m not happy with the pic . Too grainey . I tried scanning at a bit higher res but 148 it`s still grainy. I may have to break down and buy a digital.

Dale,

If your computer has enough memory, try scanning the image at at least 300 dpi, and then resample the scan to a smaller image size, say 800 x 600. It'll sharpen things up noticeably that way.

Best,

Michael

_________________
Live to Play, Play to Live

Mike , I spent at least an hour experimenting With different settings from 1200 dpi down to 300 and no joy! The pics are sharp but I scan with scansoft then save as a jpeg and when I get it down under 150 gb you see the result . I`ve about decided it just will not work. I had thought I`d be able to go to my grave with the ol` Pentax but it appears I need to purchase a digital. Next question: Which one? I`ve set out several times to select one but there are so many ! And all have different features! I end up so confused I can`t make a decision. It`s not like buying an SLR . Price is an important consideration but I don`t want to buy too cheap and end up with a piece of junk I won`t use. Suggestions? I`m open!

Dale,

That is extremely odd. For years, I scanned photos into my computer with an old 300dpi scanner, then resampled them to 800x600 or smaller, with good results. I suspect it's your software.

Digitals are great, though, because you don't have to wait for developing.

As for which digital to buy, man-o-man, that's not an easy call. I wrote a buyers guide on photo gear too! (McBroom's Camera Bluebook) The last edition had a digital section, which is now hopelessly out of date, but at least some of the discussions in there were good, I think.

Anyway, as far as digital goes, I'd recommend that you try to afford the current hot price point for the technology, which is around $300 for a 5 megapixel camera. The more MP's the better, because it allows you to crop your images without significant loss of image sharpness (ie, pixelation).

So apart from getting a camera with plenty of resolution, a couple of other items to think about are the lens, focusing, and flash -- what is the lens' zoom range, and its quality? The macro mode? Low-light focusing capability? Flash range?

Those are just a few items to consider.

I have personal experience with a Sony, a Fujifilm, and a Casio. All of them have taken great photos, although the Sony (the oldest of the bunch, and "only" 2.1mp) just took a dump last week. An error code flashes on the screen, and I haven't figured out yet how to clear it.

The photos of mine you see posted here have been taken with a 3.1mp Fujfilm digital SLR. Its flash is decent, but its low-light focusing and its macro mode are not quite as good as the Sony. The Casio is my niece's. It's pretty new. 5.something megapixels. Has a very large LCD viewfinder, and a nice zoom range.

Best,

Michael

_________________
Live to Play, Play to Live

Thanks for the info Mike. I`ll make a few notes and have a go at it. The problem I run into at most places I`ve shopped(WalMart,Kmart,RadioShack etc)the sales people don`t know any more than me!

Back to scansoft :The pics look great at 5 to 600 gb . They just go South when I reduce to 150. They are fair at 300. I`m losing something in translation here!

[QUOTE=Brock Poling]
I am sure you are thinking... geesh, this is a lot of work... I realize it is, but it produces really tight images. I have not found an automated tool yet that matches this technique.
[/QUOTE]

Check out MacroExpress. I've used that to script bunches of sequential PhotoShop commands (including input dialog boxes) for processing my Chladni photos. The automation makes my process 10 times quicker and MUCH easier since all the numerous keystrokes and menu selections are all scripted. And MacroExpress isn't that hard to learn either. I found it well worth the small price, which I think was $35. Pete Licis38574.5599189815

Cool, thanks for the tip. I will check that software out.

We have set up macros before for producing tons of similar images, but of course... we rarely ever have that situation. Most of the time we are cutting images to a hodge podge of sizes and shapes.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Dale,

I tried to find an online tutorial for Scansoft, but see it only as a company name, not a product name. I see that ScanSoft makes OCR scanning software, but don't see their plain old image scanning software. When your scanner software is running, can you see if you can click on
Help
About
and try to find out what the software is, and what version.

With my scanner, once I had set up a "twain" driver, I no longer directly used any software that was bundled with the scanner. Instead, I would open my trusty Paint Shop Pro, and click in the menu options:
File
Import
TWAIN
Acquire
and I would usually initially scan images at 300dpi or 400dpi, to get good detail from the printed photo.

Then, in Paint Shop Pro, I could resample (resize) it, and had full control of the output dpi and overall size. You will want 96dpi for Internet photos. (Any more is invisible to our monitors, wastes disk space, and slows down the loading speed.)

The picture that you posted above is very large, but has a very low (dpi) resolution. About as big as you will want to make the final picture is 800 pixels in one direction, (and that's still quite big.) But, you need that final resolution to be 96dpi for the most crisp image to be shown on a monitor. (300dpi only for printing!)

Come to think of it, you may be scanning properly, but using way too much JPEG compression to get the file size down. What does your software provide for compression? (Quality percentage, Compression percentage, or...?)

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Dennis, you may have something there. The pic should be a lot smaller. I noticed that it ran off the screen to the right but I`m not sure what to do about it. I`ll go back and see if I can figure out how to down size it to 800 pixels or less. If that fails I purchased a digital camera that should get the job done. All I have to do is figure out how that thing works!

Jumpin' Jupiter, Dale!

You not only got your photo post process working, you've got yourself a beautiful axe to take that tree down!

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

The above is the back of a 00 I built several years ago . I was trying to see if I could post a pic. This looks a little better. I still do not understand why the cherry pic comes up so large. I`ve not a clue! I might as well post the front view of the 00 maple also.